We're going to pay for Britain's repairs

Britain's infrastructure is looking a bit tatty, so our beloved government have to carry out an independent assessment of the ability of us lot, to see if we can afford to cough-up the extra £250bn which will be added to our household bills modernise the things that give us water and energy.

Above inflation increases means we're all going to get hammered, especially people on lower incomes.

It will be of zero surprise to anyone with at least one eye and a handful of rudimentary braincells that Britain needs major upgrades to services like energy, water, communications and transport.

The government think that energy bills will rise by 18% by 2030, because obviously, they haven't gone up enough already.

Margaret Hodge, Labour MP said: "No one seems to be sticking up for the consumer in all this. This is of particular concern given that the poorest households are hit hardest by increases in bills. Poorer households spend more of their incomes on household bills relative to richer households, meaning that funding infrastructure through bills is more regressive than doing so through taxation."

Hodge's committee's report - the excitingly titled 'Investment: the impact on consumer bills', Hodge said: "A staggering £375bn of investment is needed to replace the country's ageing infrastructure, help meet policy commitments such as climate change targets, and meet the long-term needs of a growing population. It is the consumer – through their various bills – that is expected to fund at least two-thirds of this investment where the infrastructure is financed, built, owned and operated by private companies. Currently, consumers rely solely on government and regulators to protect their interests. But it doesn't take much nous to work out that this is going to have a tough impact on the consumer."

The short version is this: Wages aren't going up, but everything else is.

The Treasury countered arguments against them and said: "The country will pay a heavy price if we don't invest in the infrastructure essential for our future. The National Infrastructure Plan provides unprecedented certainty about what those investments are and making sure they are built in a way that delivers value for consumers and taxpayers is at the centre of it. The analysis in the PAC report fails to make a proper assessment of this."

You can only assume that the only 'unprecedented certainty' in all of this is that those who win the contracts to take on all this work will have a strong connection to the Prime Minister and his pals, because that's how all the big jobs are divvied out.